ללא מחבר No Author

The letter was written on June 3rd, 1967, a few hours before the state of Israel declared war, on what was to become the six day war. Rav Meir describes in the letter the struggles of having a Yeshiva on the Gaza Border, in the then immigrant settlement of Netivot. He describes the time, as “this time of imminent danger”.

From the letter: “At this crisis in addition to studying day and night and bringing moral comfort to citizens of the town to prevent panic our Talmidim who intend to become the spiritual leaders for the entire Negev, now guard the town at night, render first aid to the citizens, dig trenches and assist the mayor in administration and the importance of this fortress of Torah on the Gaza Border is now recognized by all”.

Tonight I stumbled upon a demonstration in support of Immanuel Yedidya (Ami) Meshulam, now in Canada for medical treatment for undetermined illnesses, allegedly from a lethal drugs injected into him by agents of the persecutory Israeli government. I know, I know. But read on, just a bit more.

Ami Meshulam is the son of Rabbi Uzi Azulai Meshulam who is best known for raising awareness, and pursuing justice for the Yemenite children, kidnapped during the early years of the State of Israel.

This case has both disturbed and fascinated me for years. It disturbs me not only that Yemenite children were kidnapped from the families, but also because there has no real response from the government, save for the persecution of those in pursuit of the truth.

The Rosh Yeshivah of the yeshiva high school where I last taught is one of the non-kidnapped victims. He has a brother out there, possible still alive, who was taken from his parents over 50 years ago.

I have been fascinated by the thoughts of seeing families reunited someday.

Rabbi Uzi Meshulam claims to have compiled a list of 4,500 names of missing children.

You can read the background story in English. It is like something out of a film about CIA cover-ups. Only this one features the Mossad and Shabba”k (Israeli secret police). It also features a Waco style stand-off, known as the Yehud Incident.

But, that’s not even the half of it.

I have heard various names thrown around of big rabbis and [sitting] government officials who he claims were involved in the kidnappings and subsequent cover-up, as well as big name rabbis who turned him over. In the words of the man with whom I spoke at the demonstration, “…the Erev Rav.”

I have yet to find any of those names on his supporters’ website. Yet there is a lot of material out there, including videos, to be examined.

This is not the only case of non-Ashkenazi children allegedly being abused by the Israel government. The documentary “The Ringworm Children” exposes the radioactivity experiments which were carried out on children of mostly North African descent.

Some of you will scoff at the incidents presented here, and called them convoluted conspiracy theories.

One of the fliers that was being handed out included a quote from Mori Hayim Sinwani ztz”l, Rav Uzi’s grandfather and rav who originally instructed him to look into the issue of the kidnapped children:

Sounds like prophecy to me. Examine the evidence. Something is rotten in Israel.

Based on this it is clear that Hashem is crying for the first 2 people for the same reason. They are not using their talents to serve Hashem. Just like the person with the talent to learn should be serving Hashem by learning, and therefore Hashem cries because he isn’t learning. The person who doesn’t have the talent to learn, should be serving Hashem NOT by learning but by using his talents to serve Hashem in other ways. Therefore when he does try to learn Hashem cries because he is not using the talents Hashem gave him.

This Gemara is telling us a very important principle in life that a person needs to understand what his talents are and based on that figure out what his particular mission in life is and we can’t force everyone into the same mission.

IMHO this is the biggest problem in the religious world today on both sides of the spectrum. The real modern world (e.g. schools like Ramaz, Frisch, Yeshiva of Flatbush) causes Hashem to cry for person 1. People with the talent to go into learning are encouraged to do other things instead. How many modern parents encourage their children to sit and learn Torah? The Charedi world on the other hand causes Hashem to cry for person 2. In the Charedi world every boy is supposed to sit and learn no matter what his talents are and if your talents lie in other areas you are in big trouble in the Charedi world.

What we need is to allow people to serve Hashem based on their talents rather then simply pigeon-holing everyone into 1 thing.